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RALPH NADER, THE SCOURGE of Motown, the hardest-working man in the activist business, Mr. Unsafe at Any Speed, is back. Well, yes, he was back last time, during the 1996 campaign when he passively accepted the Green Party nomination, but this time he's really back. In this second bid for the presidency he plans to raise $5 million (a thousand times more than he spent four years ago), get on the ballot in at least 45 states, and pull 5 percent in the election—which would qualify the impoverished Green Party for federal subsidies next time around. Of more immediate interest, at least to Al Gore, are Nader's respectable poll numbers: 7 to 10 percent in California as of June, 6 percent nationally. If California tips Green enough, Bush could win the state and the whole damn election. Which, Nader confided to Outside in June, wouldn't be so bad. When asked if someone put a gun to his head and told him to vote for either Gore or Bush, which he would choose, Nader answered without hesitation: "Bush." Not that he actually thinks the man he calls "Bush Inc." deserves to be elected: "He'll do whatever industry wants done." The rumpled crusader clearly prefers to sink his righteous teeth into Al Gore, however: "He's totally betrayed his 1992 book," Nader says. "It's all rhetoric." Gore "groveled openly" to automakers, charges Nader, who concludes with the sotto voce realpolitik of a ward heeler: "If you want the parties to diverge from one another, have Bush win."
But Nader is no mere spoiler. Having written the 1965 auto-industry exposé Unsafe at Any Speed and founded the Center for Auto Safety and the Public Interest Research Group, the 66-year-old "Johnny Appleseed of the citizen movement," as his campaign Web site calls him, now offers to take this unsafe planet of ours and set it to rights, just like he did with the Corvair. The trouble is, Nader seems uneasy being Green. He refuses to join the party (never has joined one, and swears he never will). And while he matches the Greens in anticorporate fervor—our current government is "of the Exxons, by the General Motors, and for the DuPonts," he says—the environment seems rather low on his policy agenda. Last year he devoted just three of his weekly syndicated newspaper columns to the subject. Instead, Nader hopes his old-fashioned, trust-busting message will attract the grumbling ranks of organized labor. Hey, it could happen, say fervent Naderites. In June, still feeling scorned after the trade bill with China, the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters indulged in a brief flirtation with Nader—along with Friends of the Earth, the only major environmental group to consider backing him. Oh, yes, the environment: Nader promises "a crackdown on auto executives," "zero pollution" in our waterways, and "a total ban on logging in the national forests." While he sounds positively moderate next to the shame-on-the-human-race Green Party, don't expect any early endorsements by your local chamber of commerce. --Outsider Magazine August, 2000
Did you know that Ralph Nader has a financial interest in Dick Cheney's success and has financial ties to Enron, one of George W. Bush's major campaign contributors? While Nader attacks corporations such as Halliburton, Raytheon, Boeing, Ford, Phillip-Morris, Pfizer, MacDonalds, and Occidental as being harmful to mankind, he makes investment profits off of all of these and more. What's the point, you ask? If corporate contributions corrupt candidates, can't corporate investments corrupt candidates? And if Mr. Nader questions Mr. Gore's populist rhetoric and his mother's oil holdings, shouldn't he also question his own?
by Jeff McMahon
As you know, Greens and other activists have been protesting Al Gore because his mother's trust owns stock in Occidental Petroleum, which has been striving to drill for oil on the sacred lands of the indigenous U'wa people in Colombia. In the US, the protests have had two main targets: Mr. Gore and Fidelity Investments, one of the largest holders of Occidental stock. Fidelity holds far more shares, by the way, than Pauline Gore's trust. Fidelity controls about $500 million worth of Occidental Stock, according to the Rainforest Action Network, which accuses Fidelity of "Investing in Genocide." Protestors have urged Fidelity investors to divest from Fidelity unless Fidelity pressures Occidental to cancel its Colombia project. Apparently, Ralph Nader didn't hear them.
In the financial disclosure form he filed on June 14, Ralph Nader reported that he owns between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of shares of the Fidelity Magellan Fund. As an owner of the fund, Nader owns a portion of the stocks that make up the fund, including its 4,321,400 shares of Occidental Petroleum.
Mr. Nader has no control over the investment choices Fidelity makes in this fund, but he receives reports of fund holdings and he has his choice of funds. Unlike Mr. Gore, Mr. Nader has a personal stake in Occidental, and he has not issued any press release annoucing his divestment or pressuring Occidental to halt its project.
But wait, there's more. Fidelity Magellan also owns stock in Dick Cheney's Halliburton Company, which has been linked in a published report to the deaths of environmental activists and indigenous people in the Niger Delta. And I'm sure you will recognize the names below, just a small sampling of the companies in which Ralph Nader has a personal stake:
Exxon Corp., Royal Dutch Petroleum, BP Amoco, Chevron (Bush advisor Condoleeza Rice is a director of Chevron), Shell, Sunoco, Texaco, The Coastal Corp. (Gulf of Mexico drilling, coal mining), Total Fina (specialist in international oil exploitation), Raytheon (missle guidance systems), General Dynamics (warships), Kimberly-Clark (destroyer of forests), Louisiana Pacific (destoyer of forests, polluter of bays), Ford Motor Co. (chastised by Nader just last week), General Motors (ditto), Biogen ("bio-pharmaceuticals"), Genentech (ditto), Monsanto (pesticides incl. Roundup and bioengineering, including corn that kills butterflies), Bristol-Myers Squibb (these are all pharmaceuticals), Merck, Pfizer, Warner-Lambert, Caterpillar (don't they make bulldozers?), McDonalds (a villain of globalization), Clorox (maker of ozone layer holes), Gillette (former torturer of bunnies), Proctor & Gamble, Phillip-Morris. And the next time there's an anti-consumerism day, be aware that Mr. Nader owns stock in:, The Gap, The Limited. And these big-box purveyors of sprawl:, Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Circuit City, Bed Bath & Beyond, Staples. Also a couple of energy companies: Montana Power Co. (moving from oil, gas, coal, to fiber optics) Enron (largest natural gas company).
Fidelity Magellan controls stock in hundreds more corporations. These just popped out at me. I don't think it's a sin for a man to have investments, although there is a case for hypocrisy here, but I think those activists chaining themselves to desks at the Gore campaign might want to also visit the Nader office. In 1996, Nader refused to release a financial disclosure statement or his tax return, saying it was "full of zeros." This year he filed the financial disclosure, perhaps because his contribution level triggered a requirement. Personally, I can't believe he's not in a blind trust or one of the socially conscious funds that are available, but apparently no one scrutinizes Nader. Everyone assumes he is above reproach. He still refuses to release his personal income tax return.
Documents: Nader's disclosure form: http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/index/P20000527.htm, Fidelity Magellan annual report: http://personal300.fidelity.com/gen/ew/EW46241.PDF, Call for divestiture: (a href="http://amazonwatch.org/newsroom/newsreleases00/apr0300uwa.html" target=x> (http://amazonwatch.org/newsroom/newsreleases00/apr0300uwa.html), Report on Halliburton: http://consortiumnews.com/082000a1.html.
Relevant quotes: "As I listen to the vice president espouse his views on campaign finance reform, I look at his investment portfolio and have to ask how that might influence public policy. Gore owns substantial stock in Occidental Oil Co., which is working to exploit oil reserves under Uwa land in Colombia." --Winona LaDuke (http://votenader.org/issues/clinton-bush-gore.html)
1996 NPR Interview: SCOTT SIMON: Mr.- Mr. Nader, will you, would you, as major party presidential candidates do, release copies of your tax return and financial disclosure statement?
RALPH NADER: No, because I want to practice what I- I've preached for 30 years. I have advocated the privacy of medical records, income tax records, because I think that's an essential defense to corporate power and arbitrary government power.
SCOTT SIMON: I- I'm just wondering if- if American voters aren't entitled to know something about what your sources of financial support have been over the years in work which you're very clearly involved, even for the benefit of the American people, just so they can, you know, make a rational judgment.
RALPH NADER: Well, I- I've- I'm- I've said it to anybody who asks. It's not relevant because it's full of zeros. In other words, I don't take any funds from any of these non-profit groups. I don't take any funds from the potential can- campaign contributors, and it's hard to, you know, demonstrate a negative. (http://www.npr.org/hotnews/nadert.html)
--- "Nader said the stocks he chose were 'the most neutral-type companies.' 'Number one, they're not monopolists and number two, they don't produce land mines, napalm, weapons,' he said." (Washington Post, June 18, 2000) Nader's Fidelity Magellan fund: 777,080 shares of Raytheon, missile manufacturer (plus five other aerospace/defense corporations).
--- Nader: "I'm quite aware of how the arms race is driven by corporate demands for contracts, whether it's General Dynamics or Lockheed Martin. They drive it through Congress. They drive it by hiring Pentagon officials in the Washington military industrial complex, as Eisenhower phrased it." (The Progressive Magazine, April 2000) Nader's Fidelity Magellan fund: 2,041,800 shares of General Dynamics.
--- "The corporations are planning our futuresSThey are making sure [our children] grow up corporate. The kids are over-medicated, militarized, cosmetized, corporatized. They are raised by Kindercare, fed by McDonald¹s, educated by Channel One." (The Washington Post, Saturday, June 17, 2000) Ralph Nader's Fidelity Magellan fund: 15,694,800 shares of McDonald's.
--- "Bristol-Myers Squibb markets Taxol at a wholesale price that is nearly 20 times its manufacturing cost. A single injection of Taxol can cost patients considerably more than $2,000 and treatment requires multiple injections." -- Ralph Nader Testimony before the House Budget Committee. June 30, 1999 Ralph Nader's Fidelity Magellan fund: 15,266,900 shares of Bristol-Mayers Squibb.
--- "Both parties are terrible on antitrust. Look, we have Boeing now, one aircraft company, manufacturer after the McDonnell Douglas merger." (Ralph Nader, Burden of Proof, CNN, 8/9/00.) Ralph Nader's Fidelity Magellan fund: 2,908,600 shares of Boeing.
--- "Equally damaging, Nader said, was the Justice Department¹s failure to effectively challenge such recent mergers as British Petroleum with Amoco and Exxon with Mobil. 'The combining of these giant oil companies concentrates the oil industry¹s economic power in fewer hands and gives these merged companies greater opportunity to manipulate prices,' Nader said. 'Oil company profits are up an average of 300 percent in the first quarter of 2000 compared to the first quarter of 1999.' (Nader 2000 press release, June 28, 2000) Nader's Fidelity Magellan fund: 24,753,870 shares of BP-Amoco. 28,751,268 shares of Exxon-Mobil.
--- "The bearded Eddie Vedder, with chin-length hair framing his still-boyish face, launched into a tender version of 'Soon Forget,"' from Pearl Jam's latest album, 'Binaural.' He called out facetiously to find out whether Microsoft co-founder and area billionaire Paul Allen was in the audience, and then dedicated the song -- about the isolation and loneliness that accompany excessive wealth -- to Allen and Bill Gates.... After receiving a standing ovation, Vedder brought Nader to the stage, introducing him as 'someone who represents us and not the corporate interests.' (Salon, Sept. 26, 2000) Ralph Nader's Fidelity Magellan fund: 41,845,400 shares of Microsoft.
--- What's the point, you ask? If corporate contributions corrupt candidates, can't corporate investments corrupt candidates? And if Mr. Nader questions Mr. Gore's populist rhetoric, shouldn't he also question his own? 10/27/00
--Jeff McMahon is a California-based freelance writer who has won awards for his writing on the environment.
Naderite For a site called "bushwatch", you all certainly seem to be spending
a lot of time nader bashing.
Politex A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. That's why we've been talking about Bushnader and Naderbush this week.
Naderite But since gush and bore both make me want
to ralph, I am puzzled by this. I would simply ask this on nader's holdings,
i dont recall him ever pledging to take a vow of poverty when he began
his advocay campaigns decades ago.
Politex Have you read his quoted statements towards the end of the Jeff McMahon story? Nader specifically attacks by name those corporations he has a financial interest in. He wants his listeners to believe that by voting for him they will do something to stop the reprehensible behavior of those institutions; yet, at the same time, Nader's making money off that same reprehensible behavior. That's called hypocrisy and it's, by the way, exactly what Bush has been doing for years. There's no difference betweeen Nader and Bush, based on Nader's logic in saying the same about Gore-Tex.
Naderite Would it be better if Nader divested
from his mutual funds?
Politex It would be better if he stopped trying to have it both ways, and this is nothing new. He's said for years, trust me, I'm not going to give you my financial records, but you know I'm doing the right thing. Now we learn that he's been lying to us all these years. He hasn't been doing the right thing at all.
Naderite I personally think so, but it is not my money.
I pulled my own money out of certain funds years ago because I did not
like many of the companies the fund manager chose.
Politex Good for you, why don't you run? You sound more honest than Ralph. And on your point, Ralph doesn't have to hold those specific stocks. There are, as I'm sure you know, ways to have mutual funds without investing in the reprehensible activities of killer corporations. Ralph's not a dummy, he knows that.
Naderite But unless every
single one of you who writes for the site has no funds or investments
or is investing only in the PAX world fund, you need to move out of your
houses due to the fact that all of your windows are broken.
Politex That's not logical at all. It's Ralph who says one thing and does the other, not "us." Further, it's Ralph who asks us to vote for him based on a lie, not "us."
Naderite As a progressive, I would love to be able to support gore, but he is
a pathological liar/ embellisher who is an opportunist to the Nth degree.
Politex Bushnader and Naderbush are equally all of the above, and their documented behavior shows it. The only difference between the three on this point is the GOP started its smear campaign against Gore nearly two years ago in the media, so the poor dweebs who actually believe everything they read in the papers think Gore's a liar and Bushnader and Naderbush are not. You're not really a poor dweeb, are you? I doubt it.
Naderite To first get elected he was pro gun, anti choice, pro tobacco and a
poster child for the DLC (read republicans who live in democratic districts).
Now he is for gun control, choice, tobacco regs and a host of other
things that his polling has shown to be important themes to discuss in
swing states. he sold out the death of his sister due to tobacco on
a national stage, neglecting to mention that his familiy continued to
grown tobacco and sell it years after her death. That right there is
cold.
Politex First, did you know that Nader began his career writing anti- big government screeds for conservative journals?
Have you read about why Bush lost his campaign for the U.S. House in West Texas? They all change, sometimes out of conviction, sometimes because of politics. So what? And talk about cold, have you read about Bush's personal treatment of hate crime victims. Have you read about Bush telling Jews they're all going to hell? Have you read about Bush's psycho-drama about a woman he was fixin' to execute? Talk about cold, why is that Nader's the candidate with the biggest gender gap? Why is it that 5X as many men vote for him as women?
Naderite The difference between the populist rhetoric of Nader and gore
is that nader practices what he preaches and gore preaches what his handlers
tell him to preach.
Politex Nader would have handlers if he were running an expensive 50-state, majority-vote campaign, but Nader does not practice what he preaches, which was the point of Jeff McMahon's story above. 110/27/00
"I'm in kind of a mood, so excuse the language in this next part. I've got another bone to pick with the Nader folks. Now, remember, these guys are my friends. I grew up going to Dead shows with them. But take this quote for example: 'He (Gore) is a pathological liar who will say and do anything to get elected,' said Tim Hermach of the Native Forest Council. Hold it right there, Timmy old boy. I will spare you the long winded explanation of how Gore's supposed problem with the truth is itself a fabrication, except to say you ought to check out the facts at the Daily Howler. But even leaving that aside, it sure seems to me your guy has been running around the country telling the biggest lie of the whole campaign; namely that there is no difference between Gore and Bush. The bottom line is that this statement, which is THE central tenant of the entire Nader campaign, is A BIG FAT @#$%^& LIE and that is the *(&^% Truth whether you like it or not. So shut the #$@&* up, Tim Hermach of the Native Forest Council. Seems to me you are the pathological liar, and you are the one saying and doing anything to get Bush elected. And believe me, if Smirk and his buddies get their hands on the Endangered Species Act, there aren't going to be any Native Forests for you to Council, you stupid ^%$&* *#@!$." --that Daily Brew Guy, 10/26/00
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Naderite For a site called "bushwatch", you all certainly seem to be spending
a lot of time nader bashing.
Politex A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. That's why we've been talking about Bushnader and Naderbush this week.
Naderite But since gush and bore both make me want
to ralph, I am puzzled by this. I would simply ask this on nader's holdings,
i dont recall him ever pledging to take a vow of poverty when he began
his advocay campaigns decades ago.
Politex Have you read his quoted statements towards the end of the Jeff McMahon story? Nader specifically attacks by name those corporations he has a financial interest in. He wants his listeners to believe that by voting for him they will do something to stop the reprehensible behavior of those institutions; yet, at the same time, Nader's making money off that same reprehensible behavior. That's called hypocrisy and it's, by the way, exactly what Bush has been doing for years. There's no difference betweeen Nader and Bush, based on Nader's logic in saying the same about Gore-Tex.
Naderite Would it be better if Nader divested
from his mutual funds?
Politex It would be better if he stopped trying to have it both ways, and this is nothing new. He's said for years, trust me, I'm not going to give you my financial records, but you know I'm doing the right thing. Now we learn that he's been lying to us all these years. He hasn't been doing the right thing at all.
Naderite I personally think so, but it is not my money.
I pulled my own money out of certain funds years ago because I did not
like many of the companies the fund manager chose.
Politex Good for you, why don't you run? You sound more honest than Ralph. And on your point, Ralph doesn't have to hold those specific stocks. There are, as I'm sure you know, ways to have mutual funds without investing in the reprehensible activities of killer corporations. Ralph's not a dummy, he knows that.
Naderite But unless every
single one of you who writes for the site has no funds or investments
or is investing only in the PAX world fund, you need to move out of your
houses due to the fact that all of your windows are broken.
Politex That's not logical at all. It's Ralph who says one thing and does the other, not "us." Further, it's Ralph who asks us to vote for him based on a lie, not "us."
Naderite As a progressive, I would love to be able to support gore, but he is
a pathological liar/ embellisher who is an opportunist to the Nth degree.
Politex Bushnader and Naderbush are equally all of the above, and their documented behavior shows it. The only difference between the three on this point is the GOP started its smear campaign against Gore nearly two years ago in the media, so the poor dweebs who actually believe everything they read in the papers think Gore's a liar and Bushnader and Naderbush are not. You're not really a poor dweeb, are you? I doubt it.
Naderite To first get elected he was pro gun, anti choice, pro tobacco and a
poster child for the DLC (read republicans who live in democratic districts).
Now he is for gun control, choice, tobacco regs and a host of other
things that his polling has shown to be important themes to discuss in
swing states. he sold out the death of his sister due to tobacco on
a national stage, neglecting to mention that his familiy continued to
grown tobacco and sell it years after her death. That right there is
cold.
Politex First, did you know that Nader began his career writing anti- big government screeds for conservative journals?
Have you read about why Bush lost his campaign for the U.S. House in West Texas? They all change, sometimes out of conviction, sometimes because of politics. So what? And talk about cold, have you read about Bush's personal treatment of hate crime victims. Have you read about Bush telling Jews they're all going to hell? Have you read about Bush's psycho-drama about a woman he was fixin' to execute? Talk about cold, why is that Nader's the candidate with the biggest gender gap? Why is it that 5X as many men vote for him as women?
Naderite The difference between the populist rhetoric of Nader and gore
is that nader practices what he preaches and gore preaches what his handlers
tell him to preach.
Politex Nader would have handlers if he were running an expensive 50-state, majority-vote campaign, but Nader does not practice what he preaches, which was the point of Jeff McMahon's story above. 110/27/00
...WSJ: NADER WANTS TO KILL GORE, WIN IT FOR BUSH. ...SFC: NADER HELPING BUSH MOVE UP IN CALIFORNIA. ...FB: NADER SURGE PUTS CALIF. IN PLAY FOR BUSH. ...NM: NADER WORKING HARD TO ELECT BUSH. ...SFC: NADER HELPING BUSH TO SHAPE SUPREME COURT "FOR YEARS TO COME." ...SFC: NADER ANTI-GORE ADS BLITZ CRUCIAL STATES. ...ALTERMAN: THERE ARE BIG DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GORE AND BUSH. 10/25/00 ...BG: NADER AD BACKER PULLING OUT OF CALIFORNIA. 10/25/00
THERE'S NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PAT BUCHANAN AND RALPH NADER
How do Nader and Buchanan differ in their belief that Gore and Bush are the same? Not much. Why the heck should I be concerned about a Buchanan presidency if he's not that much different than Nader? Have you been listening to Nader's recent policy proposals? He's sounding more and more like Buchanan every day. What's Nader said about gays, guns, abortion, religion in the schools, vouchers? If you're willing to ignore those issues, fine with me. Go vote for Nader. But for those of us who disagree with the false Nader/Buchanan dichotomy, we're taking our vote elsewhere. IS THIS LOGICAL? No, of course not. Then why are we getting Naderite missives that expect us to accept this kind of logic about Gore and Bush? --Politex, 10/25/00
Dear Politex: Thank you for updating us on the status and mentality of the "Naderites". I have always respected and admiried Ralph Nader as a man of deep principle and conviction; until recently, that is. There was a point in time when I actually considered voting for him (when Bush was ahead in the national polls by 20 points). My opinion of Mr. Nader has diminished greatly since that time and there is no way I would ever consider voting for him again. Always the champion of the people against consumer fraud, he seems to have lost his way. Listening to his claim that Gore and Bush are the same product, merely wrapped in different packaging makes him guilty of promoting the same deceptive consumer fraud he spent his life fighting against. In my eyes, he is no longer credible.
It's a shame he's managed to dupe a significant number of people into believing his bunk. If they took an honest look at where Gore and Bush stood on the issues, they would agree more with Gore's position than Bush's. Cutting off ones nose to spite ones face has no place in a close election. As Molly Ivins is quoted in The Nation: "Vote with your heart where you can, and vote with your head where you must". The Naderites would be wise to take Ms. Ivins advice lest they be held responsible for electing a man who not only vehemently disagrees with their issues, but would do everything within his power to sweep them under the rug. Before casting a vote, the Naderites should read "Beware of Bush; He's Not What He Seems", By Robert Scheer which appeared in today's LA Times and "It's the stupidity, stupid", By Todd Gitlin at Salon.com. The next president is going to be Bush or Gore. They ought to think long and hard about what America would look like under each and proceed with caution before voting for Nader because like it or not, a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. -- Sharon Herman, Fountain Hills, Az, 10/24/00
Just how much a Republican victory would trouble Nader and his acolytes has never been clear. The consumer advocate, like many of his prominent backers, has talked out of both sides of his mouth about this disturbing prospect. Several months ago, Nader indignantly denied a quote attributed to him by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental advocate and Gore supporter, to the effect that the Green maverick would actually prefer a Bush victory. But the editors of Outside magazine cited a transcript of an interview with Nader showing he had said just that in an unguarded moment. Obviously Nader can't afford to encourage the perception that he is consciously helping Bush, no matter how predictable the result of his endeavors may be. Still, in his quest for vindication (and federal funding) he seems well aware of which voting bloc he can attract, and has mounted a much fiercer rhetorical attack on Gore than on Bush. Whenever pressed about whether he risks being a "spoiler," he quickly retreats into mushy utopianism. After an Oct. 22 rally in Northern California, for example, Nader sounded as if he had rejected reality, telling reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle: "I want to defeat [Gore]. I want to defeat Bush. I want to take more votes than I can possibly dream of." Of such mindless dreams are nightmares made.
In their more sober moments, Nader and his supporters have tried to reassure the fearful that almost everybody can have it both ways -- casting a vote of "conscience" for him but getting a Gore victory anyway. If that sounds illogical coming from a candidate who simultaneously proclaims that there is "no difference" between Democrats and Republicans, it is only a sad signal that Nader is becoming the kind of public figure he affects to despise; that is, a politician who will say anything to win votes. The rationalizations emanating from Nader headquarters change shape from week to week, conforming to the latest shifts in a volatile national contest. Not long ago, Nader strategist Steve Cobble wrote an essay for Tompaine.com promising voters that in "90 percent of the states," they could vote Green without worrying about forfeiting the White House to Bush because their electoral votes had been predetermined. Cobble soothingly insisted that even if Nader doubled his current percentage in key contested states, Gore would still take Florida, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington, losing only Wisconsin to Bush, and win the election. Such fuzzy math doesn't comport with current estimates by expert analysts in any of those states -- or for that matter with common sense, since many of the "battleground" states are up for grabs two weeks before Election Day. Perhaps in response to the disquieting trends of late October, Cobble somewhat hastily rearranged his argument. Last week, the Nader advisor told the Village Voice that his candidate is in fact damaging to Bush rather than Gore, because most Green votes are coming from those who backed Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996. According to the Voice, Cobble now argues that "without the option of casting a ballot for Nader, Perot backers would go for Shrub."
Yet if Nader is truly taking most of his votes from Bush -- or won't draw enough votes from Gore to affect the electoral result anyway -- then how can he claim that his party will serve as a ferocious "watchdog" against a Democratic sellout? And if Gore is really no different from Bush, then why strain to convince voters that they can vote for Nader and still watch Gore be inaugurated next January? It would be foolish to expect rigorous logic to affect the votes of Nader's most ardent backers, for whom the election has become more of an existential statement than a political decision. Dan Perkins, the witty cartoonist known as Tom Tomorrow, says that voting for Nader means "registering the fact that you exist." The film director Michael Moore warns college kids that if they don't vote their Green conscience, they'll be doomed to "miserable lives, lousy jobs and shitty relationships. You'll be miserable and then your life will be over." Moore also coolly tells students not to fret about another Bush presidency because George W. "is too stupid, and the American people are too smart, to allow that to happen." That's comfortable rhetoric for a populist who lives in a Fifth Avenue penthouse, like Moore, or another who owns millions of dollars worth of tech stock, like Nader -- neither of whom will suffer much regardless of who wins the presidency. --Joe Conason, Salon 10/24/00
Here's what's been happening on the Ralph Nader front over the last week or so. Naderites are starting a below-the-radar smear campaign against Gore, parroting Bush's charge of the lack of morality in the White House as a reason for voting for Nader. One writer went so far as to set up a morality spectrum: Nader, Bush, other candidates, then Gore. What happened to the Naderite arguement some months ago that Nader wouldn't really harm Gore because he'll only be getting votes from folks so disillusioned with the process that they wouldn't be voting at all, if not for Nader? Bunk.
What's abundantly clear now is that the nice guy rhetoric of the Naderites has given way to a slash and burn, get-Gore mentality. The thinking behind this is that with Gore out of the way, the Democratic Party will shift to the left and go back to its old ways of representing more of the agenda of the left. Fat chance. There are actually some who think of the Nader campaign as a refurbished SDS 60's movement. Destroy the moderates, make the populace miserable with the right running things for 4 to 8 years, then sweep back into office with a new left, sanity agenda. Only a dream. The flaw in this thinking is that voters are left out of the equation. Voters are not following Bush and Gore to the right. Bush and Gore are going where the voters are.
The dirty little secret of amoral capitalist democracy is that it's designed to move more and more people in the system to the right. For example, what would happen with Bush's plan to get more people into the stock market through social secutiry? Obviously, more and more people would have a reason to vote for corporate interests when those interests smack hard up against the wall of ethics and morality. (We met the enemy and he is us.) Isn't that what has happened, for example, with tobacco growers. Faced with the choice between earning a living by growing a crop of poison or doing the right thing by getting into another, less lucrative business, most have chosen to continue to grow tobacco. And while the corporate interests wait for the inevitable ethical dumbing-down of the voters by enticing them to swim in the muck of corporate greed at any cost, tools like George W. Bush get laws passed to protect those interests from taking too many legal hits for their outrageous, amoral behavior. This is called "tort reform." And the more the American voters are brought into the system of amoral corporate greed, the more they have something to lose if they were to do the ethical, moral, or just thing, and the more they shift to the right.
While Gore is hardly the solution to the problem, Cunningham's take on the question (above) is clear. In spite of what the Naderites say, there's a lot of difference between Gore and Bush in terms of the kind of world we'll be living in over the next 8 years. (And to those who are now writing that it would only be 4 years of Bush because the voters wouldn't be able to stand him for 8, never underestimate the ability of the American people to gag and retch while never admitting it made a mistake.) A few months ago, I thought that it would be better to vote for Nader in states like Texas where Bush has a solid lead. That way, Nader would get his 5% of the vote and get money from the Feds for his next presidential campaign. Now, I don't think that way. The behavior, tactics, and mind-set of the Naderites in the last few weeks indicate that, if Nader's followeres were to grow in strength, they would end up being just one more political party following the voters to the right in search of a majority. Nader and his followers ask the right questions, but they're hardly the solution. And given Bush's observation that there should be limits to freeedom of information, don't look for him to encourage such questions from Naderites, let alone help them to look for solutions. --Bill Brasin, 10/24/00
Doris responds to Brasin at Nader Watch.
Reporter Turns Up Alternate Debate Transcript
A reporter recently used Texas public information laws to obtain 900 pages of George W. Bush's governor's schedules and correspondence and discovered "a governor who works short hours and spends little time studying specific issues or working on executive matters. The schedules show that Mr. Bush typically had his first office meeting about 9 a.m., took two hours of "private time" at lunch for a run, and then wrapped up his last meeting by about 5 p.m. A large portion of the officially scheduled meetings were "photo opportunities," interviews with reporters, or meetings with school groups or other ceremonial occasions. Relatively little of the day was devoted to hard-core examination of the issues." NYT reporter Nicholas D. Kristof goes on to note that the schedules were taken from one of Bush's busiest periods as governor, 1997, a year in which the Texas Legislature met.
Since Bush has often told the nation to look at his Texas record to determine what kind of president he would be, one wonders how he would function under the extreme pressures and very long days common to the presidency. Bush is unwilling to put a label on his language and attention problems, which appear to be the reason for his short days in the governor's office. However, his friends and business acquaintances have commented on these problems.
Doug Hannah, a friend since childhood, has found that the attention problem runs in the family: "They have an attention span of about an hour." When he and George were boys, he remembers, "Mr. Bush would pick us up to take us to the movies and leave after an hour and 20 minutes.... At ball games George would sometimes want to leave in the fifth inning." "Even today," writes Gail Sheehy in the October Vanity Fair, "nothing engages Bush's attention for more than an hour, an hour max—more like 10 or 15 minutes. His workday as governor of Texas is "two hard half-days," as his chief of staff, Clay Johnson, describes it. He puts in the hours from 8 to 11:30 A.M., breaking it up with a series of 15-minute meetings, sometimes 10-minute meetings, but rarely is there a 30-minute meeting, says Johnson. At 11:30 he's "outtahere." He tries everything possible to have at least two hours of what he calls private time in the middle of the day to go over to the University of Texas track or run a hard three to five miles on a concrete path at a pace of 7.5 minutes a mile, then relax and return to the office at 1:30, where he'll play some video golf or computer solitaire until about three, and then it's back to the second "hard half-day" until 5:30."
It's not just that Bush begins to lose focus earlier than most administrators in high pressure jobs, but his language breaks down and he sometimes becomes incomprehensible. When reporters began writing about his language difficulties after the New Hampshire primaries, excuses were made by both Bush spinners and sympathetic reporters that he only made his language gaffes late in the day. Then it was late in the day and early in the morning. After that it was late in the day, early in the morning, and when under pressure. Then Bush began to schmooze with reporters on his plane and we were given stories that he didn't sleep well on the road and missed the comfort of his Austin bed. All of these explanations are true, but they don't really get to the heart of the matter. Bush appears to be incapable of working long, hard, pressure-filled days, the kind of days common to the presidency, without suffering a loss of attention and an inability to clearly communicate. Can we afford a president who works a six hour day and devotes little of those hours to "studying specific issues or working on executive matters"? Bush may want to do more, but his language and attention problems appear to prevent him from doing more. --Politex, 10/17/00
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On His Tax Plan (NYT) On His Voucher Plan (LAT) His Judicial Selection(SB) CNN First Debate Transcript "This man (Gore) has outspent me." p.56 (B-$93M, G-$46M)..... "I want to get a better return...than the paltry 2% that the current Social Security trust gets." p.50 (It's 4%.)..... "I don't think a president can...try to overturn the FDA's approval [of an abortion pill]." p.18 (He talked about trying in a speech.)..... "We've got too much polling and focus groups going on in Washington today." p. 30 "A recent poll was taken amongst 1,000 enlisted personnel..." p.28 Sidebar: Tough Message? Kill the Messenger. Six: Dyslexia Diognosticians Comment on Bush's Language Five: Bush "Belittles" Dyslexics on Larry King Show Four: Politics Before People: Why Bush Stiffs Dyslexics. Three: Bush Provides Dyslexic Denial of Dyslexia. Sidebar: Mo Paul on His Dyslexia and G.W. Bush Part Two: The Bush Team Stonewalls the Dyslexia Question In Severe Denial. Bush's Language Problem
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today's polls Presidential Race. zogbyDaily Tracking Poll. gallup Rolling Average. unweighted 4-Way Composite. electoral college All-State Projections headlines Days, Weeks, Months, Years of Previous Bush Headlines. cunningham Daily Doings tom tomorrow Tomorrow Sways the Nation Each Monday what do you think? About the "Cheney Resigning" Rumor? doris dirt Bush Isn't Dyslexic, He's Possessed. the english patient Here's the Latest Bushism. (October 1) poppy and junior Have Their Heart-to-Heart. gore-tex Stiff Jokes Meet Dumb Jokes. what do you think? About the What do You Think? Archives? old 'toons Laugh for Days, Weeks, Months.
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 27 bush flubs In Second Debate's 90 Minutes. bush's soft-core Economic Porn Sale Catalogue by request. The Day Bush's Compassion Died. ads don't Mean a Thing If They Ain't In a Swing State. midland, texas Bush's "Shining City on the Hill." book Review: Is Our Children Learning? smoking Pistols: George "Rats Ad" Bush and the Subliminal Kid hundreds of Previous Stories
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"Usually reporters favor whomever they are covering, but I think the people on this race believe that Gore's going to win," says a witness to the straw poll [that took place on Friday 10/6 while the Bush entourage was flying from Marion, Ill. to Tampa, Florida]. According to a reporter who was on the plane, a straw poll...question was not who should win, but who would win -- and 26 reporters suggested Gore will be the last man standing on Nov. 7, while just 5 voted for a Bush victory. (Another reporter confirmed that the poll had occurred, but declined to go into specifics.)...
According to the reporter, writers from such publications as the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune and three Texas papers -- the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle and the Austin American Statesman -- all voted. The source did not know whether the reporters from the Washington Post or the New York Times participated. The reporter, who described the events only after being promised anonymity, thought the vote was extraordinary. "You just don't see that kind of stuff happening, (but) even then, it's surprising that Gore won by so much. Usually reporters favor whomever they are covering, but I think the people on this race believe that Gore's going to win. He's a fighter and just will not give up." --Inside, 10/7/00
APPLETON, Wis., Oct. 5 — Mr. Bush was asked by a woman what she could tell a Democratic friend who did not like Vice President Al Gore but feared upsetting the economy through a change in administrations. The governor tried several times for an answer. "Tell her to keep an open mind," he said first. "No. Tell her governments don't create wealth," he said to some applause from an audience at the McKinley Elementary School here. "You know, as I said, the economy's done more for this administration than the administration's done for the economy. I really believe that." He took another tack, saying, "Here's what I'd tell her — fellow's got a pretty good record and he's done in office what he said he would." He started to argue that the administration must be changed in order to bail out Social Security and Medicare, then said, "I'm groping for the right answer, you can tell." --Alison Mitchell, NYT, 10/6/00
